Fast and low loss flexoelectro-optic liquid crystal phase modulator with a chiral nematic reflector.
Wang X., Fells JAJ., Yip WC., Ali T., Lin J-D., Welch C., Mehl GH., Booth MJ., Wilkinson TD., Morris SM., Elston SJ.
In this paper, we demonstrate a flexoelectro-optic liquid crystal phase-only device that uses a chiral nematic reflector to achieve full 2π phase modulation. This configuration is found to be very tolerant to imperfections in the chiral nematic reflector provided that the flexoelectro-optic LC layer fulfils the half-wave condition. Encouragingly, the modulation in the phase, which operates at kHz frame rates, is also accompanied by low amplitude modulation. The configuration demonstrated herein is particularly promising for the development of next-generation liquid crystal on silicon spatial light modulators.